{"id":2769,"date":"2012-02-03T10:06:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T18:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2012-02-04T10:19:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-04T18:19:05","slug":"friday-work-in-progress-home-port-cover-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/?p=2769","title":{"rendered":"Friday Work In Progress: Home Port Cover Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a slightly edited version of a post I wrote for the Goodreads M\/M Romance<\/a> group message board–a private forum for members of the group–to promote my new M\/M <\/em> romance (love story between male characters<\/em>) short story Home Port<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

When it came time to create a cover for my short story Home Port<\/em><\/strong>‘s ebook, I figured I would stick to what I know and draw it. Here’s a quick look at the process I went through:<\/p>\n

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1. Rough sketch. I knew in my head what the main characters looked like– and it was not much like this! But with this sketch I was able to visualize how the composition would come together.<\/p>\n

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2. Rendering. My natural drawing style is more cartoony than realistic, so I looked through the Internet to find decent photos of guys in more-or-less the right poses. Now, it’s important to note that I did not just trace these photos directly, or stick ’em in a Photoshop filter or anything like that; that would be a violation of the photographers’ copyrights. I drew from them as one would from a live model–to place the features in all the correct proportions and angles–but I made significant changes. The model for the figure on the left was a white guy dripping wet in a shower, and the model for the figure on the right had some kind of Brady Bunch perm thing going on. (*cringe*)<\/p>\n

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3. Color art. This I did in Photoshop, picking out shapes of color, which obscures the original line art completely. It’s a technique I’ve used often and I like the way it looks, but right now this is a little flat.<\/p>\n

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4. First draft. Okay, so I’ve softened it up with some filters and threw in some type and snoooooorrre. <\/em>BORING.<\/p>\n

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5. Getting closer. By cropping it up, the composition is a lot cozier and more intimate, but the type is still pretty blah<\/em>. And the colors are a little too literal; they sort of pull the eye in too many directions all at once.<\/p>\n

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6. Final draft… so far. Cropped even a little bit closer, used a more elegant font, and knocked out all the color into a nice monochromatic blue. It’s a quiet bit of art, for what I think is a fairly quiet little story, so I think it fits. I’ll probably noodle around with it a little bit before I go on to publish Home Port on Smashwords and wherever else it winds up on the Internet!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a slightly edited version of a post I wrote for the Goodreads M\/M Romance group message board–a private forum for members of the group–to promote my new M\/M romance (love story between male characters) short story Home … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p25PVe-IF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2773,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions\/2773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colleencoover.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}